May - June 2015 Local Action

by Dave Ingles

On to Sturtevant itself, at the Hwy. 11 crossing near the old passenger depot site, for an on-time Empire Builder #7, engines 100/132 and 11 cars, at 3:28.

Eight minutes behind the Builder came 551, another empty tank-car train, engines CP 8943/8781 with 120 cars. I took advantage of my position and the train speed to try some “coupler shots.” The new building to the north at the left, as Jeff tries to get out of the photo frame, is CP’s new office, same site as the old “witch’s hat” depot, which was moved and is being restored in a county park 4 or 5 miles to the northeast.

As Hiawatha #338 approaches from behind me, Jeff stands beneath the sign on Tom & Lee’s Hiawatha Bar on Hwy. 11, which is on our list of  “never have been there, must try it sometime.” I tried this day for a slide and a digital each with the sign properly spotted vs. the train, but this first try was ruined by an 18-wheeler stopped behind the gates and blocking the view. Train #338 passed at 3:55 with our “Heritage Cab Control Car” 90368 leading the usual 6 cars (tho 1 is Amfleet), P42 #35 trailing.

Next was Empire Builder #8, as usual a couple of hours late, engines 96/162 and 11 cars. He was followed by Hiawatha #337, engine 24, 6 Horzions, and NPCU 90221, at 4:29. This time the position of the bar sign worked on the digital. We then decided to relocate, knowing an eastbound freight was coming and wanting a different view.

We stationed ourselves 2 miles north at Hwy. C and got lucky, for soon a westbound’s presence was becoming apparent, and that turned out to be #199 behind UP 5550/CP 9824, moving fast enough to pass us first before meeting eastbound #282 with CP 8520/9670 to the north of us. This was right about 5 p.m., in time for us to go join others for a pre-slide-show banquet at the Culver’s on I-94 at Hwy. 20 just a couple of miles away. This day’s action sure beat the last time Jeff & I did this, when we got skunked on CP trains, seeing only the expected Amtraks.

If possible, I always try to mark Amtrak’s birthday on May 1st, even if it’s only the Empire Builder"(s)" close to home, as it was this year. It was running late in both directions, so my first was #8, engines 40/176/172, at Pewaukee at 4:15, about 2½ hours late. A westbound empty tank-car train was waiting for him at end of double track, so I went over to Forest Grove Road just west of the switch and got him leaving at 4:27, engines CEFX 1006/CP 9833.

Over on the CN north of Duplainville, I was “rewarded” by seeing one northbound stack train, #119 with 2900/2802, parked, get overtaken by another, #199, engines 2257/5641, at 4:45. I’m not sure #119, on the main, had been re-crewed yet. My shot at Spring Creek bridge shows both trains actually stopped! Good old American railroading. I then went for the obligatory shot of #7, engines 175/202, at Brookfield station at 5:07, almost an hour late. Happy birthday (not!).

The weather on May 2nd , our first 80-degree day, was a bit better, #7 closer to on-time, engines 40/172, and a hi-rail truck parked at Oakton Ave. in Pewaukee for several days made a nice prop. The eastbound was close, so I went to MP 103 at the office park “mosquito retention pond” (such being foiled by the aeration fountain) for it, engines 100/152/15 and 11 cars, at 4:40.

CN’s removal of the lineside poles along Duplainville siding has opened up a couple of new photo angles, one of them being from a small firm’s parking lot at about MP 103.5, showing new GEVO trio 2936/2889/2904 on a 112-car southbound at 4:55.

On Wed., May 6, I was fueling up in Waukesha at the old Hopson Oil Co., whose parking lot I use a lot for photos of CN trains passing the old Main St. yard site, when the gates on White Rock Ave. activated, so for grins I aimed the D700 north and got units 5674/2295 passing on a southbound at 11:12 a.m. This image is cropped about a zillion percent. I then went on home, and later back out for Amtrak #7 which turned out lucky since unbeknownst to me, one of the new baggage cars, 61004, was on the rear, making for 12 cars behind engines 202/23 at 4:23, about 10 minutes late. Strangely, no other fans were at Duplainville!

Saturday, May 9th, found me out and about again, back in that parking lot around MP 103.5 on the CN. I ignored stacker #119, with 2287/5755, at 2:45, as he stopped up at Weyer Road for a meet, which turned out to be for two southbounds. First, at 3:15, was the NS connection behind 2849/2894, then 12 minutes later a train with a cut of lumber loads up front behind 2917/2985.

I truly cannot recall why I was in Pewaukee on a dark Tuesday, May 12th, for I had no advance knowledge of anything special on Empire Builder #7, but as you can see the consist was indeed different, with Amtrak’s former 40th Anniversary Train — now making occasional appearances as a history or heritage display at various events around the country — coupled between the working units, 142/172, and the normal consist, making for a 16-car train, by me at 4:48 p.m., about a half hour late. P42 #42, honoring veterans, now was with the train, plus the non-powered ex-F40 #406. Waiting for #7 to pass at Pewaukee’s end of two main tracks was CP #281, behind 8735/UP 3556, so I hung around and got it at 4:55. The following day, May 13th, saw Carol and I go to Illinois to shoot the Chicago Rail Superintendents Association special on the former Rock Island around Bureau, Ill., with Iowa Pacific’s IC-painted E units and cars, an outing whose photos are in a separate file (http://condrenrails.com/JDI/CRSA-2015/index.html).

Following the day trip to Illinois for the CRSA special, I was next out on Sat., May 16, and shot three trains. First was this eastbound CP at Duplainville at 3:!5 with leaser CEFX 1028/NS 9096/NS 1100. I then went to Pewaukee to wait for Amtrak #7 and found this flowering tree as a prop, engines 202/23 on-time at 4:16. He met an eastbound oil train behind NS 8071/1043 at Nashotah, which passed by me at Oakton Ave. at 4:41. I had the Empire Builder shot composed (in my mind) to show the whole train on the curve with the tree at the left, but shortly before the train came a car pulled in and parked next to the tree, my fault for not protecting it. The next time I was there the flowering branches were plain green.

The next day taught me a lesson I already knew, and that is sometimes the neat, different locomotives show up on the worst-weather days. I didn’t go out until late afternoon, for Amtrak #7 with special cars, but in talking to Ron Wischer, a local fan who hangs out at Dupy and shoots everything that goes by, and maintains the duplainvilleUSA website, told me of some of the items I’d missed that day. I fetched the images from his website later and have his permission to include them here. So, the next 5 shots are Ron’s, in chrono order that day before the weather broke a bit. First is an eastbound CP with NS’s CofG Heritage unit leading, which I’d seen once, as a trailing unit on the NS Chicago Line main at Kendallville, Ind.

Second is CN local 510, a nocturnal job from Fond du Lac that often is still around North Duplainville in the morning, coming south as an NS-powered freight waits in the siding.

Third is Amtrak #8 meeting CP #199 with a UP trailer at Duplainville.

Fourth is a CN stack train, probably #119, with an IC SD70 leading; I rarely see anything but CN’s newer units on these stackers and sometimes ignore them completely. CN has recently reassigned several IC SD70s to its Bessemer & Lake Erie line in Pennsylvania, and is rebuilding and repainting the orange B&LE SD45T-3 "Tunnel Motors."

Fifth is an eastbound CP train with DM&E SD40-2s, also at Duplainville. You can see what the weather was.

My first train this day was CN #199, 5700/8844 at 4:26. The reason I went out was that 3 of the Milwaukee 261 group’s cars, having been on the first of a couple of weekend St. Paul–Chicago tours, were going home on the back of #7, which was about a half hour late at 4:50 with engines 153/172 and 14 cars. We even caught a bit of sunlight as he passed.

The sun disappeared for the next train, a CN southbound with two GEVOs up front, nothing unusual. I then went to Brookfield as I knew we had a CP train approaching in each direction. First was #281, with CSX 5436/CP 6258 (1 of 5 Soo SD60Ms) up front, by the depot at 5:21 as eastbound #282 approached. The engines met west of me, about at the Fox River bridge, so I raced east across Brookfield Road into a parking lot for apartments and a storage-bin area to see if I could make a shot of 282’s engines, and the last trilevel of #281 passed just in time for a grab shot of units 8941/8806, at 5:23, accomplished from the driver’s seat as I’d hurriedly swung the van around for a proper angle. The last two frames are in proper order, to show you how “close” it was on seeing 282’s units.

The last train of the afternoon was CN #198 in Waukesha at 5:43, engine 8920 up front of 127 container wells with rear-end DPU 2317.

On Thursday, May 21, I was alerted at the office by one of our CLASSIC TRAINS designers that this would be the last day the local CN “rock train,” which hauls aggregates from a quarry in Sussex, just north of Duplainville, to a customer in Grayslake, Ill., would be operating in daylight. I hadn’t even known this was taking place, the trains having been on nights, with a ho-hum CN six-motor road unit in charge, for a long time. We’d all shot these trains a lot in WC days, and sometimes there has been one big train, also from a quarry at Allenton, Wis., to a customer in Mundelein, Ill., not two separate ones. Lately, two CN B-B units had been reported as assigned. So after my stint in the office, I made for Duplainville, just in time for both Amtrak “Empire Builders,” the eastbound of which was again taking the 261 group’s baggage car, full-length MILW dome, and Skytop obs on a Chicago weekend outing (the group sells these as weekend tours from the Twin Cities). I first checked on the Rock Train, ready to go at the quarry, then made for Duplainville just in time for #7, which was on-time. CP action then cranked up and I could not leave, winding up getting 5 trains in 28 minutes, the last being the Rock Train, all around Duplainville.

He met #8 less than a mile to the west, engines 153/172 and 13 cars -- only 10 usual ones, not 11, but with the 3 promised 261s on the back — thanks to Steve Glischinski for the Skytop tip. No. 7 was accelerating slowly, having run out from Milwaukee on Track 2 to cross over at Dupy in front of a stopped CP #281 east of Springdale Road, just east of the diamond. So here is #8 having just gotten the clear home signal at Dupy, by me at 4:28.

As soon as #7 got west of the next signal, CP #281 started up and crawled by at 4:31, with UP EMDs 3629/UP 3619 as power and 108 cars, the first 60 of which were 281’s usual trilevels and then 33 tank cars scattered among the remaining 48, in groups of 18 and 12, then 2 and then 1.

Surprisingly, another westbound was right behind him, a rather short 76-car empty tank-car train, with CP 8933/NS 7703 as power and symboled #687 according to a friend, right on #281's tail and crawling by me at 4:42.

In between CP action, I'd been checking the CN at nearby Green Road for the Rock Train, and the third time was a charm, as he was rounding the curve a half mile north, so I went to Joseph Road, the dead-end not far south of the diamond, and got him at 4:52 with CN 5722 (no B-B units as reported in earlier days) and 35 of the usual SSAM/CN former ore “sand jennies,” to complete the 5 trains in 28 minutes. With nothing else obviously expected for a while, I went on home.

On May 23rd I was out to see the “Builders” again and, tiring of the same old angles, tried this one, on a quiet Saturday, looking north on Duplainville Road at the crossing, at 4:22 with engines 46/40 and the usual 11 cars.

I’d seen Amtrak #8 and two ho-hum CN freights, but this northbound, at 4:29 at Joseph Road, at least had interesting power, 2424/5459 on its 127 cars, which included a string of new frac-sand hoppers, a big business for CN in western Wisconsin.

The next train worthy of note was Amtrak #8 the next day, May 24, running 7 hours late with BNSF 7799 in front of Amtrak 132/39 at 6:53 p.m. I went out despite the weather and was rewarded by a westbound grain train waiting for him at Pewaukee, with DM&E 6368/CP 6043 as power with 71 cars at 7 p.m. Always nice to see those SD40-2s.

Several significant events bode for including some early June happenings with the May Local Action file, now officially May-June, instead of waiting until July. The first was on Tuesday, June 9th, when friend Jeff Hampton began circulating the word that CP loaded crude-oil train #580 was called out of Portage at 1 p.m., with NS 1068, the Erie Heritage unit, in the lead. A regular NS unit, 1156, was DPU on the rear. The train made good progress once it left Portage, Amtrak #8 having already gone as it was only an hour-and-some late, but this meant all spots close to Waukesha would be badly backlit. Rick Moser had driven up for that evening’s slide show, in Waukesha, so he and I headed west around 3 p.m., and wound up just east of Nashotah siding, on Vettleson Road, for broadside views – not the best, but we had insufficient time to go further west as the train was making excellent time. He passed us at 3:53; Rick shot these digitals (10 frames total) while I motor-drove the N90 for slides. This was the 8th of NS’s 20 Heritage units I’ve seen in person (others, more or less in order: Wabash, IT, NYC, CofG, MGA, VGN, and PC).

The second encounter was unexpected. A little after 4 p.m. on Friday, June 12, Carol & I were returning home from downtown Waukesha when she spotted the gates ahead at the CN crossing going down. I changed course and went to Arcadian Ave., just north of the depot, for a possible shot. We pulled up when the gates went down, but then nothing happened. I figured it was the local switcher, lately CN-IC 9622, putting itself away on the depot spur for the night; his crew would have to unlock and realign the switch. Nope – it was a Loram rail-grinder, proceeding south at its working pace.

We watched him work past us toward the depot, then, convinced he would continue to work south, went on out to West Avenue, which parallels the track up “Cemetery Hill,” which affords a nice open view. The remainder of these images were made there, from 4:30 to 4:45 p.m. After about 15 minutes, he came into view around the curve to the north, and went past us, though he was not grinding (the grinders are alternately lowered to grind and raised when idle).

On his first “run-past,” I took close-ups of the GP-like power unit (note the Blomberg trucks) up front and a tank car carrying a foam/water mix. He went partway by us, then backed up to grind across the Newhall Avenue overpass and up by our position.

We lost a bit of sunlight as he came at us again, this time grinding, but no big deal. In the one image, the little orange things by the track are recently installed “Shunt” signs, indicating grade-crossing circuits. You can see sparks from the grinding beneath the equipment in three or four of these images. The rear unit is a caboose-like car, on whose rear platform a “fireman” is stationed, to watch for any wayside burning caused by sparks from the grinding.

As the complete machine passed us, Carol glanced to the north and said, “Fire by the overpass.” Sure enough, the rear man had spotted the smoke, radioed the front, and the train backed past us down to spot the rear man by the street bridge. (Later inspection seemed to indicate that no grass actually caught fire — we’d had a lot of rain, and the grass was probably wet. All we ever saw was smoke.) I think what the man sprays is fire suppressant foam, perhaps with water, but not just water; the tank cars are so labeled.

The smoke extinguished, the train worked back uphill past us, and the car behind the power unit, probably controlled from the head end, let out a perhaps cautionary suppressant foam spray along the right of way.

We drove south, past the West Ave. crossing, onto the side street parallel to the track, and watched the train cross West Avenue. Soon two police cars and a Waukesha fire truck showed up, probably called in by someone who saw the action at Newhall Avenue. The train backed up so, I presume, the personnel in the control unit could brief the local responders on what was going on. When he backed to clear the crossing, we went on home, though we encountered two more “safety backup” vehicles, first a Loram (I assume) truck, near Newhall, then a CN truck at the Grand Avenue grade crossing. This was only my third encounter with a grinder in action that I can offhand remember, first a Speno outfit on the N&W in Springfield, Ill., when I lived there (one photo in my “Central Illinois Rails Vol. 2” book), and another east of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on the then-C&NW main line, I think in the 1980s, on a cloudy but very windy day, when the soot and debris from the grinding combined with topsoil from the fields to create a sort of “instant soot storm.”

Three days after the Loram encounter, on June 15, I was crossing the CP at Springdale Road just east of Duplainville when I saw an eastbound in the distance, so I naturally stopped to look. Ordinarily I wouldn't include a routine photo on a gray day in this album, but the power was two CITX leasers of a group I'd not seen before, big EMDs 118/119, passing at 2:04 p.m. I decided to go over to the diamond to see if any other action was pending.

CP #281 indeed was pending, passing at 2:30 with SD40-2 CP 6042 trailing GE 9357, with 44 trilevels up front and a total of 121 cars. Right behind him 10 minutes later was stacker #199 with leader UP 5514 and CP 8542 on a train of 96 container wells. Then a rarity on CN these days, a Powder River coal train for WIs. Public Service at Green Bay, came north at 3 p.m. led by UP 5694/6417, the latter in patched SP paint, with 120 cars and DPU UP 7279 on the rear. I believe these trains normally go over the Twin Cities from UP onto the CN, because I haven't seen, or heard of, many, if any, thru here in recent times. Alas, car WPSX 1027 was not in this consist, tho many of its brethren in the 1000s and 1100s were.

To cap off the action, I knew that Amtrak #8 had  PV on the rear, so I stuck around for it. First, #7 went by at 4:20, engines 181/12 and not presented here. He met #8 at Nashotah, which passed me at Pewaukee at 4:35, engines 23/122,  I knew about the PV, which was Sierra Hotel, because friends Jeff & Janet Madden, returning on #8 from Seattle to Glacier Park to retrieve their SUV after riding the westbound Calgary section of the Rocky Mounaineer to Vancouver, had called from Whitefish, Mont., the morning before as the PV was being attached to their #8.

On Tuesday, the 16th, I was not out, but a huge transformation took place at Duplainville as the thickly forested lot immediately southwest of the diamond -- on which we'd seen clearing out of ground clutter, trash, and stray dumpsters and a truck trailer -- was completely cleared of trees. Friend Ron Wischer, on the scene, said it reminded him of a big-time logging operation. I discovered this on Wed. the 17th, which was sunny, drawing me out. First, tho, I shot a routine GE-powered CN southbound in Waukesha and then went to Pewaukee, seeing this oil train with CP 8518/NS 8006 at 1:45 p.m. The objective would be a CP westbound at Duplainville to show the "new backdrop" or "treeless horizon," but none were in the offing. Wischer and others report that a firm called Surf Prep (preparation of industrial flooring, etc., the "surf" from "surface"), which has its HQ just north of the CP, has bought the lot south of the CP for material storage. This is unconfirmed, we shall see, but to bring the ground up to street level, a lot of dirt fill will have to be put on their new property.

Later, after lunch, a southbound CN with 3 units surprised me along Duplainville Road, so I went back thru Waukesha for a shot on the south side at Amron siding, engines 8916/2103/5520, at 2:55; the close-ups were slides, my first in a while. Middle unit is an ex-C&NW/UP Dash 8, and rear unit is 1 of 62 remaining (of 64) SD60Fs, still in factory striped paint.

Now it was time for some CP westbounds, after a midday lull, so naturally it began to cloud up. (I saw but am not including here some more routine GEVO-powered CN trains, and I let one CP go as I was in Pewaukee out of position and the units were two dirty red GEs.) For Amtrak #7, I stationed myself back in the line of cars on Marjean Lane to show the "clear area" beyond the road, between it and the CN track; #7 came by a half hour late at 4:45 with engines 206/130. He'd overtaken freight #281 and crossed over, and meantime #8, the usual 2-hours-plus late, had arrived on Track 2 and sat from 4:30 until departing at 4:55. Compare any of dozens of previous views from along Marjean Lane to the east and you'll see the "loggers" left only one big tree standing, right along the road. If you look close, a huge pile of sawdust is visible on the lot at the far right. As #8 left, I panned on the engines and saw that the leader was #83, which had powered Texas Eagle #21 with Otto Dobnick and me on board from Chicago to St. Louis on May 28, to join the BNSF Circle trip (trailing unit was 136). Note that #7 has one of the new 61000-series baggage car, and in the meet shot that #8 has no baggage car at all.

After the "Builders" were gone, #281, which had arrived at 4:50, throttled up and passed at 4:56 with CP 8543/CSX 483/CP 6258, the latter one of five ex-Soo SD60Ms.

Friday, June 19 was a gorgeous clear, cool day totally void of trains in midday until friend Denny Hamilton called me from Vernon siding, south of Waukesha, telling of a 4-unit northbound CN led by a BCOL red-white-blue Dash 8 "widebody." So I hung around north of Duplainville and got him at 3:15 pm with units 4620/5798/2631/2198. Then Denny called again to report stack train #199 right behind the BCOL, so I shot him across the newly cleared-out lot at Duplainville itself, units 2526/5666, at 3:27. You'll notice the lone remaining large tree on the lot had suddenly flowered out, which won't last long, so I included it

I went home to fetch Carol as it was such a nice day for a ride, and we went back to get Amtrak #7 at Dupy. I could only work one camera for "the" angle showing the flowering tree, so I made that a slide, taking two digitals, first looking NW at the head end (engines 99/196) going-away, then shooting the Superliners in the same framing as I'd taken the slide.

As we left Duplainville, we heard the CP d.s. on the scanner tell #7 to "Stop your train immediately; there is an obstruction within 18 inches of the rail at MP 105.6." So we headed for Pewaukee -- that Milepost is the lakefront in downtown on Pewaukee Lake. We often park in a public lot north of the tracks to shoot on the curve there, and the village has built a depot-like replica building as a beachfront facility with restrooms, storage, and for summertime sales, a snack and food counter. The day was warm, the north lot almost full, and the beach itself very crowded. Two vehicles had parked in back of a now-closed gas station just south of the tracks, and were indeed too close to the rail for train passage. Carol shot this grab shot looking east down the track.

Pewaukee village police placed tickets on the two offending vehicles' windshields, and had called local towing firm Ken Weber Towing, which sent two flatbeds to haul the cars away. The photos were made from our van's parking spot. Meantime, #7 was holding at MP 104, east of CP's "Pewaukee" where 2 main tracks go to 1. The silhouette of the man in one photo, as I shot over Carol and thru the passenger window, was a cordial old guy who said, "I've been here 80 years and there's always something interesting going on in Pewaukee." The white SUV you see was not fouling the right-of-way, was not ticketed, and remained parked there. We can only imagine the reaction of the two vehicle owners who, upon returning to their parking spot from the beach, saw that their cars were gone! ("No sir -- or ma'am -- your vehicle was not stolen . . . ")

Soon Amtrak #7 got the highball, and after a delay of about 45 minutes, passed us at 5:07. Meanwhile #8 had held at Nashotah siding, first one to the west, passed us -- relocated to the Oakton Ave. crossing east of the lakefront -- with 11 cars behind engines 181/12 at 5:22, to conclude an interesting late afternoon. Subsequent June 2015 local images will be posted in another file, probably in July.

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